Trillanes to sign bank waiver

SENATOR Antonio Trillanes 4th said he will sign on Monday a waiver for all the alleged bank accounts that President Rodrigo Duterte claimed he has to prove that they were non-existent.

Trillanes categorically denied that he has been keeping offshore bank accounts as alleged by the President on Saturday.

Duterte during the 26th Mindanao Business Conference held in Cagayan de Oro City Friday said that he already obtained the bank documents. According to the President, Trillanes has Chinese joint accounts and bank deposits in Hong Kong, Australia and America.

“I categorically deny the allegation. I don’t own even a single offshore account. I will wait for the (bank) details he (President) would be giving out and I will immediately sign the waiver for the AMLC (Anti-money laundering council) and the Ombudsman,” the senator said in a radio interview aired over DZBB.

Trillanes challenged the President and members of his family to also sign waivers for their multi-million bank accounts.

The senator was referring to the more than P2 billion in bank accounts allegedly of Duterte that was first brought out in 2016.

Trillanes, during the investigation of the Senate blue ribbon committee into the P6.4 billion “shabu” shipment from China, claimed that Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte and his brother-in-law Manases Carpio have more than P100 million in their bank accounts.

The senator said copies of bank documents bearing his name were fabricated.

“If these documents were really authentic it would be (Justice Secretary Vitaliano) Aguirre and (Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador) Panelo who would call for a press conference and present it to the public,” Trillanes added.

He maintained that the allegations against him are part of an effort to divert his attention and distract him from pursuing his allegations that the President’s family is involved in corruption.

Duterte on Saturday vowed to destroy Trillanes by baring to the public the lawmaker’s vast bank deposits.

“I’m coming up with Trillanes’s bank deposits. Ngayon nakuha ko na, akala kasi niya hindi ko rin kaya e [I already got the documents, he thinks I cannot get them]. So I am giving in a few days the number of deposits that he has with…Chinese joint accounts. It’s all over, Hong Kong, Australia, America,” Duterte said during the 26th Mindanao Business Conference held in Cagayan de Oro City.

In a press conference on Saturday, Duterte said he had been keeping the documents for some time.

“All I had to do was to get the goods on him. Matagal na iyan hawak ko but you know, medyo sumosobra na kasi (I have had those documents for some time now but he is getting too much). He has been at it against me, my son, and my family since the election. The campaign period is over, I thought all the while that politics is like that. But he’s bent on destroying me. So I destroy him or he will destroy me. Ganun lang yan eh, (It’s as simple as that),” the President said.

No probative value
Sen. Richard Gordon, chairman of the blue ribbon committee, belittled the allegations of Trillanes against Duterte and Carpio, saying that they don’t have any probative value.

Trillanes also accused the Davao City vice mayor of being member of a Chinese triad engaged in illegal activities including drug smuggling.

The senator claimed that the young Duterte has a dragon tattoo, proof of his membership to the triad.

“The whole Senate blue ribbon had said that they (Duterte and Carpio) be allowed to go, because if there was really something they should have stopped them” added Gordon.

But Trillanes noted that Duterte did not deny his membership to the triad.

“He forgot the basic thing to deny his membership. I asked him openly if he is a member. Maybe he couldn’t deny for fear that the triad may go after him,” he added.